ShinRa
By: Quistis & Xu
Disclaimer: We don't own anything but our minds and our own sanities.
Authors' Notes: This is the Sequel to "Diary of the First Lady" by General Quistis.
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Chapter 2: Rufford
Reno went ahead and headed straight to the lounge. Once he got inside, he saw a man who was supposedly 40 years old, yet he looked much younger. He had blonde hair and icy blue eyes which strongly reminded Reno of the late President Rufus ShinRa, except that his hair wasn't combed back neatly; instead it looked a little messy.
The blonde guy stood up and smiled stiffly at Reno. "You must be Reno." He said plainly as if he'd known Reno for a long time already.
Reno was silent for a while before he had managed to nod his head in greeting. "Yes… nice to meet you…and you are?" he asked.
The blonde man smiled slyly. "Rufford Lockheart." He replied simply.
Reno raised an eyebrow; Rufford noticed the sudden angry look from the redhead. "Is there something wrong?" he asked.
Reno shook his head. "Oh nothing… it's just your surname. It sounds so familiar." He replied, trying to avoid the piercing stare from Rufford's blue eyes.
"Why, do you have an enemy with that surname?" Rufford asked, trying to probe him.
Reno gazed at him with a puzzled look but he did not answer the question. "Follow me, I'll introduce you to the President." He said before he turned back from Rufford.
Rufford had this sly smile on his face when he heard the noun president. "What is the President's name?" he asked as he followed Reno down the hallway.
"Tiffany ShinRa. She's the only daughter and heiress of the late President Rufus ShinRa." He explained glumly.
"I see… late? Why? How did the ex-president die?" Rufford asked.
Reno would like to smack Rufford's face with a paper fan for asking that. "Man, he applied as a new Turk and he doesn't even know a thing about ShinRa?" he thought miserably before he replied, "Some rare disease that I haven't even heard of before… he kept on vomiting blood until his body weakened and he died before Tiffany was born." He explained.
"Where's he buried?" Rufford asked.
"The cemetery… the ShinRa Family has a mausoleum there. It's in Nibelheim, actually." Reno explained.
Rufford was silent for a while but he spoke up again with an inquiring tone, "What about Tiffany's mother?" he asked.
Reno frowned and he could feel his own blood boiling because of the question. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Rufford shrugged. "Oh you know… who is she, what happened to her…" he stammered uneasily.
"We don't know. She left the poor child here and she took some money from her dead husband and she went off somewhere." Reno lied.
Rufford was silent for a while. "Alright," he said plainly.